1319 N 11th Street is a quiet minimal traditional style home built in 1927 and is owned by Ned Loomis. However, there was a previous owner before Ned. A funny story about how Ned came to own this house was the previous owners put it up for sale and moved to Hawaii. After it had been on the market for a few months, Ned decided to make an offer. He contacted the previous owners' realtor and got their email. He emailed them and came to a conclusion that he could have the house at $37,000. The house was sold over email, Ned never met the owners, only the realtor. This happened 12 years ago. The most Ned enjoys about this house is that it is homey and traditional, he also has his own furniture and a separate room for his daughter when she visits.
This quaint, cute house is a one story 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house, up until 7 years ago. In 2002, Ned wanted to add on a sports bar to his house. He had some trouble with zoning but in the end, he got his sports bar. He also added a deck/car port. This deck attaches the two "houses" together at the roof. It is quite cool if you ask me. That was the thing that caught Alex and my attention. Also his purple fence added to that curiosity. Ned told us that he also added the driveway and took out two posts holding up the little overhang in front of his door. So the overhang would not collapse he had his friend build steel supports which match the house very nicely.
A few stories Ned told us was that kids from Boise would come over in the middle of the night and use his deck/car port to get drunk. And in the morning all of his lawn chairs that were on the deck now lay all over his lawn. To stop them from doing it again, he tied a chair in between the railings so the drunk teenagers would have a hard time getting over it and ascending the stairs. Another thing that Ned spilled to us when we were interviewing him was that his daughter was a computer nerd and she also lived in Hawaii. When she would come visit he was going to have her show him the website. He was very happy that his house was going to be on it. He thought it was cool.
Have you ever had a doodlebug infestation? Well Ned has. He told me all about doodlebugs. What's a doodlebug you might ask. Well they are little spiderlike bugs that burrow into the ground making a coneshape. They sit at the bottom burried under the dirt waiting for unsuspecting creatures to fall in. When they do fall in, the doodlebug reaches out with is many legs and pulls the bug under the dirt. That would be how it eats. Ned seemed quite happy to talk about doodlebugs and his house.
After touring the main house, Ned took us to see his sports bar. It was a large room with a bathroom and a closet and a nice TV right in the middle. The walls were covered with BSU fan stuff and of course, there was a mini refrigerator. We walked around and took some pictures, then Ned offered us a beer. Our reaction was priceless. I don't know about Alex but I didn't know what to say to that. So I sort of just laughed and changed the subject to his weird dresser that had a sink in it. It intrigued me. I asked him why it had a sink and he said,"I found the sink at a garage sale and I had it installed." I have no idea why anyone would want a sink in their dresser, but hey, it was cool. We found many awesome things in his sports bar like: some old BSU uniforms, a patch of the turf from one of the major BSU games, Ned's old tennis racket that was warped, posters of BSU's defeat of Oregon, many many things. Alex and I really wanted to see these cute old men, friends of Ned, sitting in this sports bar watching football. We thought it would be the cutest thing ever.
Alex and I were at a loss when we first started this project. We had no idea what to do. I suggested just driving down a street and picking a house. So, we did just that. It turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Not in finding a house but in choosing a house. We drove down 11th street and saw so many beautiful houses we just didn't know what to do. Then we saw Ned's house. It was just so unique and different then the ones we had already passed. It was funny because we both looked at each other and said,"We are doing this one." When we went up to his door we told him who we were and what we were hoping he could help us with. He didn't hesitate when he invited us in, without even asking our names! We weren't complaining, we were happy that we got someone who was friendly and not a pain in the behind. When we got in to his house we still weren't completely sure what we were going to ask or write down or even take pictures of. Alex took the initiative and asked the first question. Then it was so simple because Ned just kept telling us things. We found out so much about him and his house in a matter of minutes. It was an amazing experience that made my day much better. I would do it again because of all the cool, funny things we learned. In fact, Alex and I are going to do it again, before Ned's house, we found this gorgeous house a block away from Ned. We were going to stop there and choose it, but the owners were not home. So we left them a note stating what we were doing and if they were willing to help. Then we got the email from Edward. Because Ned made our experience exhilarating, Alex and I want to keep going. We would even like to research houses during the summer. It was a total blast!

A Note On Accuracy
The Idaho Architecture Project (IAP) is a community engagement initiative from Preservation Idaho. All images on this website were taken by IAP participants unless otherwise noted. This catalog consists of submissions from community members, students, historians and preservation experts. Because of the varied nature of these submissions from novice to expert, there may be historical or narrative inaccuracies. Please contact us to report any necessary corrections.